Hello, Newbie in WA!!

[JeffM]

Hi All!

Not new to RV'ing, just this forum.  Found this forum in hopes of finding some good advice for buying a new travel or fifth-wheel trailer.

My wife and I just started looking for a new one and I want to make sure I get a GREAT deal!

  I belong to a Subaru owners/enthusiast forum and there is lots of information there as far as  how much people are actually paying for their Subarus.  When I bought my new Subaru earlier this year, it saved me thousands of $$$$!

  Does anybody know of a site where I can actually see what people paid for their RV's?  Would that be a good idea for a forum on here? 

When I bought my first travel trailer, the MSRP was $21,500.00.  My wife and I had already set our budget at $12,500.00 so I did not think that we would be getting that one, even though it had all  the features we were looking for at the time.  Well, we walked out with that trailer at our $12,500.00 budget price!!!

I was APALLED that there was so much markup!  I work HARD for my $$ and I do not like the idea of throwing away ANY of it.  I believe that we as consumers really need to band together and stick up for our rights as well as our wallets!

So, anybody out there feel the same way?  What can we do?  Or has it already been done?

Regards,

JeffM

 

[Karl]

JeffM,

There are no hard and fast rules about buying a new rig. Some people say you should be able to get around 20-25% off the list without too much bargaining. Knowing what other people paid MAY help get you in the ballpark, but you don't really know if they paid too much to begin with. Pick out a floor plan, decide what your budget is, and bargain for your price. You may have to walk away from several rigs until you find one for your price, or maybe you'll have to set your sights a little lower.

Good luck!

 

[Carl L]

Jeff, you have been buying cars that way for most of your life.  The mark-up is the same there and the same bunch of guys sell cars as sell RVs.    Haggle is the name of the game.

 

[JeffM]

Yeah, I have been buying cars that way, and I think I am one of the best at getting a great deal!  I do not stand for the "pricing by payment" method or the "what you trade in will determine how much this one is".  Simply put, everything has a hard cost and every dealer has to cover his overhead and then some, the salesperson needs to put food on the table, etc. etc.... but I cannot stand to find out I left possibly THOUSANDS on the table. 

There also seems to be more info available online about what people are ACTUALLY paying for their autos.  Maybe that is just because there are more people buying cars than are buying RV's?

I just do not trust the "just take 20-30% of the MSRP" rule as it is just too broad.  I would really like to know which mfgrs are higher than others (and by higher I mean more % markup from their hard cost to produce said unit.) 

Is there more room for the dealer to haggle on the Higher end "full-timer" units or can they lower their price more on the "budget" occasional-use units?

As I mentioned in my previous post, I saved $9,000.00 over MSRP on a "$21,000.00" unit.  My math says this is 43%!!!!!  So, in this instance the "20-30%" rule would have left at least 13% on the table!!!!!

On my recent Subaru purchase, the MSRP was $34,000.00.  I paid $25,500.00.  That is a "savings" of  $8,500.00.  My math on that says it is a 25% savings ( I think 25% on a car is really good these days as I have seen a trend by mfgrs to not "overprice" their MSRP as much in recent years due to the savvy internet shoppers.)

I just think it would be neat to have fellow RV'ers have a place to post their actual purchase prices and it migh inspire more people to haggle a little harder!  I get really upset when I hear someone bragging about what a great deal they got on their RV and find out they only got 10% or so off MSRP.  Again, they left multiple THOUSANDS on the table!!!  If we were able to start a "database" of sorts here or elsewhere it would certainly take some time to accumulate any kind of comprehensive list, but over time, it could only help serve us all.

Maybe I should just start a thread titled "haggling tips" so people can post their best tactics!

Anyway, it is great to be aboard and I look forward to learning lots from all of you professional RV'ers!!!!

Regards,

JeffM